


A Whole from Three Halves

by 2x2verse (agent_florida), Mystical



Series: The Big Banging Theory [6]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angry Sex, Backstory O'Plenty, Closeted Character, Dersecest - Freeform, F/M, FaceFucking, M/M, Oral Sex, Psychoanalysis, Sibling Incest, Threesome - F/M/M, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-22
Updated: 2013-10-23
Packaged: 2017-12-30 03:19:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1013463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent_florida/pseuds/2x2verse, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mystical/pseuds/Mystical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's sat and waited for them to solve their issues for over ten years now, and it's obviously not working. Rose decides to take matters into her own hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mystical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mystical/gifts).



You stare at your screen in shock.

Rose is coming. Rose is coming to visit now. Here. With this bullshit going on.

Your head hurts.

\-- ectoBiologist  [EB] started pestering turntechGodhead  [TG] at 23:18 --

EB: did you invite her over?   
TG: no   
TG: did you   
EB: no!   
EB: did you?   
TG: asking me again isnt gonna change my answer   
TG: jesus egbert you could just talk to me   
TG: i can hear you fucking typing through the wall   
EB: shut up.   
TG: im no psychologist but that sounds like a lot of poorly repressed anger   
EB: shut   
TG: might wanna look into it before you go postal and murder your roommate   
EB: up!   
TG: let me go ahead and eulogize myself   
TG: alas poor strider i knew thee well   
TG: howd he die chief?   
TG: well detective it looks like his roommate snapped his wang in half   
TG: stop yelling at me through the wall goddamn   
EB: shut up shut up shut up!!!   
TG: too much of a pussy to come talk to me huh

Whatever Dave’s typing is going to have to wait. You shove yourself away from your desk, slam your laptop closed, and in no time you’re hammering against Dave’s door. “Let me in, shitlick,” you yell at him, “just tell me you invited her and no one has to get hurt.”

There’s no typing noises from Dave’s room. For a few seconds, the apartment is quiet enough that you swear you can hear his breathing. Then he scares the shit out of you by answering your knock, cracking the door open only a few inches but startling you with the sudden movement. He looks white. (That’s rich of you to say, you being ambiguously brown and all.) Whiter than usual, that is, pale like he just saw a ghost, with his pupils blown out and his eyelashes trembling. (You hate yourself for noticing these things.) “I didn’t invite her,” he whispers.

He looks like he’s just as fucked up by this little announcement as you are. “Well. Uh. She’s your sister,” you point out stupidly.

“Don’t remind me.” Dave shuts his door.

It closes right on your toe. You punch the wood in frustration and you can nearly hear Dave flinch on the other side.

\--

It’s not like Rose is creepy, or even all that unwelcome. She’s just… well. A little unnerving, so to speak. She’s a bit of an enigma. While Dave got all the artistic talent and Jade got all the theoretical sciences, you seem to have picked up the math, which leaves Rose to the social sciences. She took to them like a grotesque tentacle monster to the H.P. Lovecraft canon, getting her B.A. in only three years before she went to law school. You don’t think she’s actually a lawyer. Last you heard, she was peddling a novel to one of the great publishing houses in New York City. Maybe she actually got one sold and she wants to come to celebrate.

Still, this isn’t going to be a purely social visit. It never is, with Rose. She always has an ulterior motive, even when you can’t discern any motives at all. She’s still your friend and everything! She just… scares you a little. And if she scares you a little, she scares Dave a lot. He’s been wandering around the apartment for the past few days like a revenant of her is haunting his every step.

Or at least you think that’s what he’s been doing—you haven’t really spent much time around him since… whatever the hell that was. Even breathing the same air as him is a little stifling to you. You’ve been going in early and coming home late from work, taking meals with colleagues. As far as you know, Dave’s called in sick this whole week. The apartment has been just that little bit cleaner every day—doing the same thing he did for his brother where he had to have everything in its right place.

No, you’re not about to start thinking about what (inevitably) happens when the two of you have guests. You don’t like where this is taking your thoughts. Especially not when you’re thinking about Dave’s relationship with his siblings. (Ugh.) This isn’t healthy.

Rose would know.

\--

Rose is supposed to be here on Thursday. She’s staying for two weeks. (This is a recipe for disaster.) On Tuesday, you stumble in late after a night out with the other CPAs from Accounts Receivable, tie loose and shirttails untucked, and your immediate instinct is to walk straight to Dave’s room and give him a piece of your mind. (More like a piece of your dick.)

Dave, though, is already busy, judging from the unmistakable sounds you can hear once you lock the door behind you. Why is he always such a loud fuck? No, wait, that’s porn, Dave won’t stop nattering but he’s not exactly a screamer. (That’s you. With him. He makes you scream. NOT THINKING ABOUT IT.) Still, you can hear him breathing, can hear the telltale schlicking of his dick in his hand.

Your stomach clenches. You’ve never felt nauseated from alcohol before. At least no one else is in there with him. Does that make it better or worse? God, all of you aches right now, a hangover even before the morning after, and you know exactly what would make you feel better but you’re at a point where you can’t even think about it without feeling like you’re betraying yourself. Giving in to something you’re not.

You move into your own room, strip and let your clothes land where they may, and you’re faced with a half-hearted hard-on as Dave’s ministrations carry over through the thin wall between your bedrooms. He’s getting close. You recognize those sounds. (Why do you recognize those sounds? You wish you didn’t.) You feel guilty and disgusting, and it only gets worse when he finishes—

\--by moaning out a vowel sound that’s awfully close to your name.

You bolt out of your room and into the bathroom, locking the door behind you and turning the shower onto as brutal an icy blast as you can stand.

\--

“Jonathan. It’s always so nice to see you.”

“Oh, Rose. You never change.” It just makes you smile as you draw her into a hug. She knows your given name is John, just John, and yet she always calls you that. Pretentious bitch, but you mean that in an affectionate way.

God, and yet she’s changed so much since all of you were thirteen. Back then, she was kind of short, definitely pudgy, trying too hard to fit into that goth stereotype. It worked, for a while. Then she grew up. She’s taller than Dave now, not exactly slim but she’s definitely grown into her tits. When she catches you looking over at her cleavage while you drive her back to your apartment, you just blush a little. You feel like a little kid again when you’re around her.

When you let her up and in, you’re surprised at what greets you. Dave’s actually dressed in something besides My Little Pony sleep pants and a threadbare wifebeater with an ironic slogan on it. You recognize that shirt, actually—it’s the Ben Folds shirt you bought him for his last birthday. Looks good on him, especially since he’s doing the GQMF thing and pairing it with dark jeans and a suitjacket. Pretentious fuck. Matches his sister in that respect.

His shades are so shiny you can see your own reflection in them. The second Rose is sitting in your living room, he’s at her side with a martini. Like he’s a fucking waiter or something. “Capful of vermouth?” she interrogates him. He nods. “Swirled in the bottom?” Another nod. “Two and a half ounces of gin?” Dave’s a bobblehead. Jesus. “With eight cubes of ice?” Is Dave, like, her mind slave? “Swirled for three minutes?” Have you stepped into the Twilight Zone? “Three green olives without pimientos?”

Dave freezes. “Shit,” he whistles between his teeth.

“Trick question.” Dave noticeably relaxes, and Rose smiles that little Mona Lisa smile of hers. Was this a test for Dave? (What was yours, if this was his?) Rose puts the martini glass to her lips; her wine-dark lipstick doesn’t even smear on the rim when she takes a sip. You never knew her to drink—in fact, you thought she hated it, seeing as her mom was quite the lush. “Very good, David.”

“Anything for you, Rosalyn.” His simpering smile in return lets you know that this is some sick form of inside joke. You don’t get it. You’re one for straightforward pranks and huge laughs, not this subtle passive-aggressive one-upmanship. “You’ll be staying in my room.”

“And where are you going to be staying?” you bite out. It’s been hard to stay quiet this whole time.

Dave just looks at you like he could see right through you. Like he wishes you weren’t here. “I’m bunking up with you, remember?”

If you’d had something in your mouth, you would have spit it out. You remember nothing of the sort. You haven’t even talked to him since that little confrontation about Rose visiting in the first place. You wish you could weaponize your glare. Still, you’ll look like an asshole in front of your guest if you don’t play along. “Yeah,” you say bitterly. “Yeah, I remember.”

This is going to be an agonizing two weeks.

\--

Dave comes into your room in boxers and not much else around eleven that night. “The hell are you doing in here?” You really need to install locks. More to the point, Dave needs to use and respect them if you do.

Dave just raises his eyebrow at you. “I’m bunking with you, remember?”

“Don’t pull that shit with me.” You’re really not in the mood. “Guests sleep on the couch. If you want to get Rose in your bed, fine.” Wait. That sounded wrong. “But you’re not getting in mine.” Wait. That was right all along. You point at the door. “Couch. Now.”

If you know Dave—and you do—he’s pulling puppy-dog eyes behind his shades. “John,” he says quietly, sounding a little choked up. “Didn’t last night mean anything to you?”

“Out.”

Dave lets out a long, theatrical groan. “Fine. I’ll be back tomorrow night.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Man, you’re really not in the mood, are you?”

Dave is driving you insane. Not in the good way, either. You take your glasses off, pinch the bridge of your nose between thumb and forefinger before you card through your hair. (At this point, you’re about to pull it out, you’re so frustrated with him.) “We are not talking about this, Strider.”

He just whistles. “Touchy.”

Rose can probably hear this entire exchange through the bedroom wall. Is this entire scene a show for her? You drop your voice to a gritty whisper, lunge towards Dave until you’re in his personal space and pinning him against your open door. “Get out of my bedroom. Now.”

“It’d be easier if you weren’t trapping me in it,” Dave whispers back.

“I don’t know what the fuck kind of game you think you’re playing here,” you murmur right over him, “but I want nothing to do with it. This is between you and Rose. Don’t triangulate me into your weird-ass sibling rivalry.”

“John.” Not fair. Dave knows your name in his mouth can get you to shut up right away. “Please. When do I ever ask you for anything?”

“Every moment of every day.”

“Not the point. Listen.” Dave breaks eye contact, sighs. “I’m taking the day off tomorrow. You should too. We’ll make breakfast—“

“I’ll make brunch,” you correct him, grumbling.

“And make that cinnamon french toast, would you?” You could punch that shit-eating grin off his face. “Anyway. We’ll show her around town. Wine and dine her a little. Maybe she’ll tell us why she decided to all of the sudden—“

“All of a sudden.”

“Come here to visit us,” Dave talks over you. “She’s freaking me out. Seriously, she’s probably drawing a pentagram on my carpet and using my pube clippings and piss to summon the Dark Lord.”

“She’s not doing that.”

“Prove me wrong.”

You both fall silent. You can hear her muttering to herself in the next room. Probably just reading aloud to herself, but still, that’s disturbing. “Anyway. Yes. I’ll make breakfast. Just. Get the fuck out of my room, I don’t want you here and I don’t want to fucking—deal with this. Not with her Freud-dar right there in the next room.”

Dave opens his mouth. You can almost predict the snark that’s about to spill out past his teeth. Amazingly, he seems to catch himself at the last minute, literally biting his tongue and deliberately pressing his lips together. “Okay,” he says, even though that’s the furthest thing away from how he sounds right now. “Okay. Just. Okay.”

You peel away from him. (You wish you didn’t have to.) Dave ducks out from under your arm and stomps out to the living room. You have the absurd urge to apologize to him, but that wouldn’t do anyone any good, would it? He’s made his bed.

And now you have to lie in it.

\--

Cooking reminds you of your dad. It’s kind of relaxing. You don’t have anything on your mind but watching the french toast until it gets perfectly golden brown, measuring out just the right amount of coffee and putting the water on for Rose’s tea. (It wasn’t just Dave prepping for her visit—you made sure to get the right brands of all the foods she eats. Hell, maybe you actually remember how to make her Darjeeling the way she likes it.)

Surprisingly, Dave is up before Rose. Even more surprisingly, he goes for coffee instead of his usual apple-flavored energy drink bullshit. “You don’t have to impress her,” you tell him idly, cracking two eggs into a skillet.

“Yes, I do,” he grumbles, wiping the sand out of his eyes. He’s not even wearing his shades. He looks so exhausted this way. “Where’s the—“

“Right above you, second shelf.” That you can anticipate him asking about the sugar just proves that the two of you needed to stop being roommates years ago. You know way too much about him. Can finish his sentences for him. This is a little too close for comfort.

“Thanks.” Yeah, Dave’s definitely not awake if he’s actually showing you any kind of gratitude. “Hey, uh, I was thinking we’d take her out to Ruth’s Chris’s Steakhouse for dinner.”

“I didn’t know she ate meat!”

“You have no idea,” Dave mutters into the bottom of his mug. He only splutters a little, God bless him. “Needs milk.”

“Good morning, boys,” comes an airy voice from the area of the bedrooms. Rose comes into the kitchen, resplendent in a light purple silk robe that looks kimono-esque. It matches her eyes. You smile at her. (Of course, the wrap of the robe accentuates her cleavage. She looks so nice.) “What’s on the menu?”

“My dad’s cinnamon french toast, eggs any way you like, and I can fry up some bacon if you’d like. There’s enough coffee in the carafe and you can use the kettle if you want tea.”

“You’re a dear, Jonathan.” Rose already smells of orchids. Weird. She really ought to smell like roses. Not that you’re complaining, of course! This apartment really needs a woman’s touch every now and again. Still, the scent lingers in your nose, even after she leans up over your shoulder to kiss you on the cheek in appreciation. Damn it, you’re blushing like a schoolboy. And when you look over, you can catch Dave trying and failing not to laugh at you. “I’ll just take the french toast, if you please.”

You easily plate two slices for her. The eggs, which you were frying for Dave, get crammed onto his plate, next to four slices of french toast. The guy could eat enough for an entire army and yet he manages to stay his skinny, gangly self. You work hard for this—an hour at the gym every weekday, and he doesn’t have to work at all. Still, it makes you less self-conscious at moments like this, when you’re shirtless over the range and trying to impress a lady. “Powdered sugar and syrup are on the table.”

“Thank you, Jonathan, but I believe I’m sweet enough.” Rose takes the seat at the head of the table. Dave just looks at her, then silently takes the place to her right. Always in cahoots, those two. By the time you make yourself a plate and sit down with a mug of coffee, you can already see them having an entire conversation in glances and eyebrow movements. “Now. What’s been going on in your lives?”

“Nothing,” you say quickly. “Absolutely nothing.”

“Yeah, I—no,” Dave agrees. “Got a couple things in pre-production, but—nah. Nothing.”

“Hm,” Rose hums to herself. She brings a bite of breakfast to her mouth, chews thoughtfully. “Have you had many other guests since you two moved in here?”

You and Dave just… look at each other. Is this a loaded question? He nods almost imperceptibly at you. You can field this one. “A few,” you hedge.

“Wonderful,” she says noncommittally. “Jonathan, how’s your father?”

Okay, yes, you caught her mock-British accent. And yes, you know the implications of that British slang. You won’t fall for her bait. That was a little obvious, even for her. “He’s doing well enough.” You shrug around a mouthful of food. “Getting closer and closer to retirement. Very exciting,” you deadpan.

“And what about you, David? What about your brother?”

You and Dave do a simultaneous spittake. Rose couldn’t have missed that. Dave’s turn to be under fire. “He, uh. He actually visited not too long ago. What was that, John, a month, two months ago?” You point your fork at your mouth—not going to speak with your mouth full. Not this time, anyway. Dave’s eyes widen a little, as if to entreat you to help, but you refuse. “I think he and John got on really well.”

“I can only imagine,” Rose says. God, you hate that tone. It makes you feel like a slimeball. “I may as well volunteer information about my family. My mother is currently four years sober. She is even more insufferable than usual. I must say, it’s quite a relief to be away from the eastern seaboard, if only for a few weeks.”

“Yeah, uh. About that.” Dave clears his throat. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

Rose just smiles. “I can’t merely call upon my dear brother and his roommate?”

“No,” you say before you can stop yourself. “No, you really can’t. You’re Rose Lalonde.”

“Of course. What was I thinking?” She sets down her cutlery and her mug of tea. “I’m here to avoid paying half of my rent for this month. I’ve heard nothing from New York, and so now I’m out in California to peddle this manuscript.” Rose picks up her knife again; it glints subtly in the kitchen lights. “Is that enough to satisfy you?”

You and Dave look at each other. Shrug. Turn back to your food. It’s not the whole truth, but it sounds like nothing but the truth. A good start.

\--

Dave texts you at 6:30 on Saturday morning. He’s going into the studio to meet up with some producer that’s only going to be in town for a few hours or something. (More like “please handle my sister for a few hours while I try to get some peace and quiet in the loudest way possible.”) Still, this gives you some breathing room. You need to breathe—part of your aspect.  You feel lost without it.

You’re in your third hour of an old-school Doctor Who marathon when Rose makes her grand appearance. “Good morning,” she says.

“Hey,” you say softly. “Sorry, I didn’t make breakfast today.”

“It’s all right.” She pours herself a cup of coffee, joins you in the living room with a mug and a banana. “Yes, I know,” she says before you can quip anything.

“Really?” She smirks. “Really.” Okay, now she’s giggling. Did you just get her to laugh? “This is so ironic it hurts. Why isn’t Dave here to enjoy this?”

Rose just sighs, leaning into your side and resting her head on your shoulder. Her hair smells good. She’s so soft, so gentle—and then her words are precise and sharp and it leaves you thinking that her name is so appropriate for her. Beautiful, but lethal. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was avoiding me.”

“Yeah. Yeah, he is.” It’s easier to talk to Rose when you’re not face to face with her. Sometimes, you forget she’s just a human being. Maybe it’s that you’re not good with girls, but that’s probably not it. It’s Rose. You just want her to like you, even after all these years. “I think he’s scared shitless of you. You should have seen him flip a bitch when you said you were coming.”

“I didn’t mean to startle him,” she says quietly. She feels warm against you. You wrap your arm around her and she only snuggles closer. Like you’ve always been this close and you’re not just now seeing her for the first time in a few years. “I didn’t lie when I said I was behind on my rent.”

“I didn’t think you did,” you reassure her. “Still, this is… kinda sudden. That can’t be your only reason.”

“I’m trying to sell my work, John.” Oh. She’s being serious, not falling behind that smokescreen of her upper-class sneer. “I still have student loans to pay off. I know I have something here—I just need a purchaser.”

“I’m sure Dave could find someone,” you mention. He’s the one with all the art world connections, after all. “Hell, he could make it into a movie—“

“Which would require publication first before I can sell him the adaptation license.” You look at her, but she just shrugs, the movement pressing her shoulders further into your arm. “I did go to law school. Thus, needing to sell the manuscript.”

“Is there anything I—we—can do to help?” Might be a bit presumptuous to include Dave in your offer, but there it is.

“No, no.” She starts to peel the banana with her teeth. “I’ve done this to myself, and I’ll get back out.”

“I’m sure you will.” You mean it, too. The two of you watch the Third Doctor escape from yet another set of shenanigans before you have the nerve to speak again. “That’s not the only reason why you’re here, though, is it.”

“No,” she confirms.

You’re waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it just hangs there pendulously. “You’re not going to tell me, are you.”

Rose takes a bite out of her fruit, chews it thoughtfully. The psychological implication doesn’t bode well. “You’re a smart man. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

No. No, you really won’t. You’re kind of stupid, especially about these kinds of things. But you just smile and nod, tucking her head under your chin and hugging her to you. She doesn’t exactly shrug away. And at least for a few hours, you don’t have to entertain her by unhinging your skull and offering her your brain for examination.

\--

You’re not about to vary your routines just because you have a visitor for the week. Of course, the last time you had a visitor, you returned from your Sunday grocery run to find Dave fucking his brother. Honestly, after that? Nothing can be quite that weird. (Well, come to think of it, it’s Dave’s sister who’s visiting this time… no. No, you won’t think about that. No, nope, too weird.)

Still, when you come back after an extended coffee run to put food away in the kitchen, you don’t overhear anything salacious. Good. Maybe this will be like a normal visit of a normal sibling to normal roommates. Ah, who are you kidding, it’s going to get fucked up sooner or later, but for now, it’s still okay.

Maybe. You don’t overhear anything sexual, to be sure, but even though Dave has the door to his bedroom closed, you can hear him having an intense conversation with his sister. “… this entire apartment into his personal closet,” you can hear Dave saying bitterly.

“Surely it’s not that bad.” You’re not trying to eavesdrop. They’re just kind of loud and you’re being unusually quiet. Yeah. That’s it.

“He’s a homophobic doucheasaurus.” That’s a new one, even for Dave. You thought you’d heard every variant of douche there was. Who the hell is he talking about? “And I don’t know what to do about it.”

“What have you tried?” Rose is asking him. Oh. Oh no, she’s got the mind-probe out and she’s psychologically assaulting his mental asshole.

“Everything.” By now, you’re done putting things away in cupboards. You start putting things in the refrigerator one by one so you don’t miss too many words. “Remember what I told you about the two of us in college?”

“I imagine you took that one step further,” Rose muses. Okay, you really wish you had some context for this. Took what one step further?

“Try that giant leap for mankind thing. Seriously, since I’ve lived here…”

You miss the end of this sentence with fog falling out of the freezer while you shove Tyson’s Anytizers next to half-empty bottles of vodka. You and Dave may grow old, but you’ll never grow up. Probably not, anyway. “… ever think before you do anything?”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time. Plus, he—he likes it.” Dave sounds almost embarrassed. Man, you’ve seen some weird and different facets of Dave around his relatives, things he never shows you. You wish he could open up about these things to you. “And it just kept going.”

“How long?”

“How long have we been here?” Dave spits right back out. You can’t hide in the kitchen forever, but you don’t want to alert the two of them to your presence. Instead, you sneak back to your own room, try to open your laptop so you can do some high-quality social networking, and yeah. You can overhear better from back here.

“And how has that worked out for you?”

Dave’s quiet for a few moments. You catch yourself straining your ear towards the wall, like that might make him answer faster. “… broke…” is the only thing you can make out from his response, his voice cracking.

“He’s stronger than that,” Rose says warmly.

Dave snorts out a derisive laugh. “You sure about that? I’ve never seen him so fucked up.”

Okay, they must be talking about Rose trying to get back on her feet and your clumsy offer of help you gave her yesterday. That’s what ‘broke’ means. Right? “Don’t give up, Dave,” Rose says, quieter this time. There’s a shuffling sound—is—are they—they must be hugging. Weird. You never imagined either of them to be huggers. Must be a big deal. “You love him.”

“Ew, no, that’s gay,” Dave mocks her. “I don’t love him. Seriously. I don’t know what the fuck this is, but that’s not it.”

Or—wait. Who is he making fun of? Maybe he’s talking about his relationship with his brother. “He loves you, too. He’ll see it before the end.”

“Yeah, but what am I supposed to do until then?” Yep. Definitely talking about Dirk.

“Talk to him.”

“He refuses to talk to me. It’s been weeks.”

“He’ll talk to you.” She sounds so sure, whoever it is.

“How do you know?”

You can almost hear Rose’s enigmatic smile. Must be why Dave sounds like he’s losing his shit. “Call it a woman’s intuition.”

“God, Rose. Don’t fuck him up too bad,” Dave groans.

Rose lets out this giggle that’s not amused in the slightest—it’s gloating. “Whoever said there would be copulation?”

“Oh my God,” Dave says. It’s muffled. Probably because he just put his face in his hands. “You’re an evil bitch. And I mean evil.”

“I promise I’ll leave him intact. Mostly.” There’s a creak—Rose must have stood. “It’s you who has to live with him, after all.”

You startle when Dave’s bedroom door opens, even though the two of them have no idea you were listening. For a minute, you’re scared Rose is going to barge into your room next, try to worm her way into your thoughts, but no, you listen to her footsteps retreat to the living room. Good. Crisis averted. They’ll never know.

And then those last words dawn on you.

They were talking about you the entire time.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s hard to go through the rest of the day pretending like you didn’t hear your roommate—your best friend—Dave—call you a homophobic doucheasaurus. You’re not a homophobe! You’re just… not a homosexual. Which is something he doesn’t seem to get. (Something you yourself don’t exactly understand, given how Dave is one of the only people who can make you react so wildly—how Dave is the only person you trust.) Every time he opens his mouth, you want to wrap your fingers around his throat and press down, choking all the stupid words out of his head. What right does he have to talk about you like that?

And what right does he have to tell other people what’s been going on?

Sure, it’s not exactly the biggest secret. When you and Dave come together, it’s like an atomic bomb, and people keep getting caught in the blast radius. Like Nepeta. Like Dirk. And just like always, it’s Dave dragging them in, Dave exposing you—the two of you—and you can’t control what these people say, can you, can’t make them shut up when all they’re saying is the truth.

Still, you manage to hold your tongue until the next morning. Rose leaves early, leaving a note in the kitchen that she’ll be out the entire day shopping her book around. Dave’s a late riser, but he doesn’t have to be punctual where he works. Hell, he doesn’t even have to show up, he can just do his sound studio thing from the privacy of his bedroom. You’re staying home this week, too, determined to entertain Rose as much as you can and do your spreadsheets in your pajamas while you watch old MST3k episodes through Netflix.

Dave wakes up at the crack of eleven and stumbles into the kitchen, a faint trace of morning wood tenting his sleep pants as he stretches. It exaggerates the paleness of his skin, the leanness of his body, and you want nothing more than to tear him apart, the asshole. You flex your fingers; they itch, and badly. “Where’s the shrew?”

“That shrew is your sister,” you remind him, setting aside your laptop, “and she’s out today.”

Dave’s posture noticeably relaxes. What the hell is his problem with her? “Probably visiting her vampire girlfriend or whatever.”

“They’re still dating?”

“I don’t know.” Dave opens the refrigerator, snaps open his energy drink. “Who else would voluntarily fuck her?”

You clear your throat a little, and Dave snaps his head to look straight at you. Without his shades, he looks his age, which is weird—for some reason, around him, you feel stuck in a time warp, still twelve years old and bewildered by the world. “She’s pretty,” you explain under Dave’s wilting red-eyed glare.

“That’s my sister you’re talking about,” Dave says pointedly. “What, I’m not good enough for—“

“Not talking about it,” you tell him loudly. You drop your hands to your thighs, grip them as hard as you can stand; it’s the closest you can get to choking him right now.

Dave shrugs, sauntering into the living room with an I-win smirk on his smug-ass face. “Just stating the obvious.”

You try. God bless you, you try, at least a little. But the second Dave sets down his drink and sits down on the couch, you can’t hold it back. He starts to open his mouth, but you preempt him, getting the crux of thumb and forefinger at his throat just below his adam’s apple and threatening to press down. “I heard you. Yesterday.”

“Yeah. That.” It’s harder for Dave to act nonchalant when you’re cutting off at least some of his air. “Rose is worried about you.”

“You told her.” You grip down a little harder. Dave’s eyes go wide. “You fucking told her, didn’t you.” Dave just nods, his chin bumping against your wrist. “Oh my God, Dave. Why? Why the hell would you tell her?”

Both of Dave’s hands come up to close around your wrist. You let him a little slack, and he takes in a breath like he’s trying to insufflate you into his lungs. “It’s Rose. Everyone tells her everything—“

“Not this,” you grit out. “You don’t tell anyone about this.”

Dave just laughs absurdly. He does this thing, this weird thing when he’s stressed, where he just lets out this high-pitched giggle that drives you insane. “Too late, Egbert. Nep knows. Fuck, my brother knows—you brutalized him, he’s not gonna forget that anytime soon—“

“Shut up!” You use your hand at Dave’s throat to shove him backwards into the couch; you hover over him, threatening him with your weight, but like this, you can feel every point where your bodies touch. His body heat sears through clothing and burns you to the core. “I don’t want to talk about this, okay, I don’t even want to think about it—“

“Am I that disgusting to you?” Dave’s voice comes out small from where you’re choking him.

No, you long to tell him. It’s you who disgust yourself. “You can do whatever you want to me. I don’t give a shit. Just—you can’t go and spread this everywhere, I can’t—“

“Whatever I want?” Dave cocks an eyebrow. Under you, his hips raise from the couch until he’s rutting up against you.

Your eyes flutter closed. You can feel him hard against you, that slight erection you saw in the kitchen now in full force against your body. Your hands clench reflexively; Dave makes a choking noise that sounds more pained than pleasured, and you pull back before you actually hurt him. You’d never forgive yourself if you actually did anything to harm him—more than anything else, he’s your best friend, and you’d never—you would never—“Don’t,” you sigh out, the strength going out of your voice, because you can already feel your body responding to the hard press of his. “Don’t do this to me, I can’t—“

“You can,” Dave says, his voice low and angry. His eyes are on fire. “You just won’t.”

“Won’t do what?” You slip two fingers in his mouth to shut him up—less likely to kill him than when you were choking him. He purses his lips around your knuckles, slicks his tongue against your fingertip, sucks, and you’re gone, moaning and trapping his body against the couch cushion with your own. “God, Dave, I can’t do this,” can’t do this balancing act in your head, can’t keep pretending like everything’s okay, can’t take back words you’ve said, can’t keep anyone from knowing. Can’t handle your own feelings. Can’t control your own desires. Your breathing is heavy, and your voice has started to crack.

Dave says something around your fingers; you just force them further down his throat. “Just. Shut up. Don’t say anything. Don’t. Don’t, Dave, just don’t,” and it’s not a no, it’s a don’t-push-me, especially as you curl your body over his and the two of you move together. You don’t feel safe any more, Dave was supposed to be safe and he keeps ruining it and you just want things to go back to the way they were, only mildly terrifying and not this sharp.

God, but you’re so hard against him, though, and his mouth feels so good around your fingers, his lips look so good swollen and glossy like that and you need him to stay quiet and it’s through this impeccable amount of logic that you get your knees in his armpits, shove your flannel pants down past your ass until the waistband is taut around your thighs. “Shut up,” you keep muttering, “shut up shut up shut up,” even though he’s not saying a word, because you can feel his eyes judging you, even while he’s staring at your cock and he drools around your fingers like he’s fucking thirsty for it.

You won’t make him wait, can’t stay patient yourself, just take away your fingers and Dave makes a little plaintive noise while his mouth is empty before you press the head of your dick past his fat lips and gasp at the feel of his tongue licking at your slit already. Dave’s hands come up to your hips, try to keep you from pushing too far too fast, but you don’t give a shit, Dave’s made his choices and deliberately riled you up and if he can’t live with this then you’re not sure what you’re going to do without him.

Grabbing his wrists in your hands, you force them over his head, and Dave lets out this delicious groan that you can feel throbbing through your dick as you trap his hands in your grip—just one hand, you know he likes the size play between you two, and you like him being the one feeling small and helpless for once. You push forward with your hips, drive into his mouth, and though you don’t go slowly Dave’s already expecting it, letting you into his throat and God it feels divine. You thrust and Dave chokes a little, his eyes involuntarily watering up. Or is he actually crying?

You don’t care. He looks beautiful like this and you hate yourself for thinking that, hate yourself for burning this image in the back of your mind—the fluttering of the pulse in his wrists under your fingertips, his lips stretched around your girth, his tongue tracing your length and his throat swallowing around you. Dave takes little panicked breaths—you can see his nostrils flaring as he sniffs in air—but you keep going. He can still breathe, and this feels so good, to take your pleasure from him and shut him up simultaneously.

At first, you were going to take it slow, but now? Now you can’t. You’re angry and you’ve been holding it back since that last time he handed your ass to you and you can’t say it in words but you can shove it into your mouth with brutal thrusts that leave your cock making pornographic schlicking sounds against the inside of his mouth and your balls making obnoxious slapping noises when they bump against his chin. It feels so good that you let out a low groan, and you don’t want to keep it in, not when it’s vaguely in the shape of his name.

His hair is so soft when your fingers card through it. You shift to thrust a little more meaningfully into his mouth and your foot brushes against his hard-on; you press down on it while you tip into his mouth and Dave makes this high-pitched whining sound that you wish you could taste, it’s so saccharine. God, he’s getting off on this as much as you are, and this is so disturbing but it feels sickeningly right and Dave’s just letting you use him like he knows.

He knows. Damn him, he knows, he knows how much it hurts you and how bad you need it and he’s just letting you, this perfect boy who fractures you and holds you in his mold while he puts you back together, and you scream angrily when you flood his mouth and for the love of everything he actually swallows, swallows down your bitterness and makes it a part of himself and never complains even as you draw your dick out and take your foot away from his crotch where he’s still painfully throbbing hard.

His lips are cum-smeared, his eyes wide and wet. He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand as you rear up from over him, try to crawl away and fumble yourself back to your seat on the couch with your dick still hanging out the front of your pants. The way he stares at you is clearly passing judgment, and even though you were the one who just used him, he won. He won this little fight.

He always wins, and you can’t even hate him for it. Because he’s right.

\--

You and Dave are like a divorcing couple for the next few days. Neither of you are in the same room when you can help it. When you are, you don’t talk to each other. You don’t even look at each other. You pretend he doesn’t exist, and he lets you. Plays along. Pandering to you.

Rose has to notice. At least she doesn’t say anything about it. She’s pandering to you, too, but to be honest, you need the breathing room. (Aspect. Dave needs time, you guess, and Rose has seen the light.)

Still, by Thursday, it seems like she’s done playing coy. She has the decency to wait until Dave’s out of the apartment, but it still hits you pretty hard. “How long has it been since you and David had a serious conversation?”

You spit out the wine you’d painstakingly chosen for the two of you. (You can make breakfast and that’s just about it. Rose is lucky she ate your spaghetti instead of your usual takeout.) “We were talking on Monday.”

“And what was the substantive content of that discussion?” Rose takes a sip from her glass.

At least she doesn’t sniff at it and immediately set it aside. “You’re not going to like it,” you mutter into your alcohol.

“Try me.”

You can’t tell what kind of a mood she’s in. “I overheard the two of you talking. Earlier this week—I came in with the groceries and—I didn’t mean to—“

“It’s all right, John.” It always reassures you when she uses your actual name instead of the longer nickname. “Dave was merely worried about you and wanted some psychological head pats to reassure himself.”

“That’s funny.” You don’t really drink wine, but Rose’s taste is pretty good. “He said you were the one that was worried.”

“Let’s call it mutual.”

You don’t know how to interpret that. “I don’t know what he told you, but none of it is true.”

“I’m sure.” She smiles, and it seems genuine. It’s infective, too, and you’re smiling back soon enough. God, she’s so disarming, and it’s easy to forget that she’s your best friend’s sister. Especially when your eyes keep wandering down to just below her collarbones. “And before Monday, when was the last time you spoke to Dave?”

“The first night you were here. Thursday. I kicked him out of my room to sleep on the couch.”

Rose’s smile turns into the glint of fangs. You immediately hear what she heard—when you say it like that, it sounds pretty fucking gay. Like a marital spat. “It seems as though communications have broken down.”

“It’s not like that!” you insist. “I talked to him before that—it was right after when you said you were coming to visit—and before that both of us were a little busy, but—“ Rose is staring at you. “Okay, maybe it is like that. Honestly, we were fine until maybe two, two and a half weeks ago. We were playing video games and then he beat my ass in.” That’s a way to put it.

“Mm,” Rose murmurs noncommittally. “And since then, you two have rarely been in the same room. I’m afraid I visited at the wrong time.” She stands from the table, bringing her wine glass with her.

“No!” You said that a little too quickly. She’s leaving, and you hope she’s not just going back to Dave’s room to pack her shit, but no, she walks into the living room and makes herself at home on your spot on the couch. “No, not at all, we always welcome visitors.” In your own way. You follow her, trying to put her at ease and probably failing really hard. “We hadn’t seen you in a while. It’s nice to have you here. Have you seen this place? Typical bachelor pad.” The springs of the couch protest when you sit down next to her. She nestles into you immediately, just like she did over the weekend. You like that. “Needs a woman’s touch.”

“Do you not get many ladies here?”

“Nah,” you say dismissively. Wait. Was that the right answer? The wine’s muddling you a little bit. Second glass and all. Rose’s hair smells good. “I mean, I do date and stuff.” You’re so awkward around Rose. You don’t mean to put her off! “I’m single right now! I mean. Just. When I’m doing the dating thing, it’s usually casual, or I stay at her place.”

“I don’t understand why,” Rose says as she puts her feet up on Dave’s chair. As per usual, it’s covered in once-worn sportcoats that he takes off the second he comes home from work.

“I’m single,” you blurt out again, just in case it wasn’t obvious that you were ham-fistedly trying to pick her up.

“I see.” Rose smiles into her wine glass. “Is my dear brother currently seeing anyone?”

Me, you long to say, he’s seeing me. You can’t. More to the point, you won’t. You don’t even know if it’s true. “Not that I know of,” you mumble. “If he does, I try not to stick around. The walls between our rooms are… kinda thin.” Yes, you’ve heard him fucking before. Whacking off. Being fucked.

Rose is done with her wine. She sets down her glass on the side table; her other hand comes up to your chest, and she curls in closer to you. The weight of her body feels nice against yours, soft curves against the cut of your muscles. “And he never brings women home?”

“Uh… how do I put this. He’s…” This is your last swallow of wine, too, and you set it down on the coffee table. “I’m not as good with words as he is, but he’d probably call it buttfucking his way to faggot hell.”

“So he’s homosexual.”

“Yeah.” Like it was obvious. “I’m not. By the way.”

“Of course not.”

Is she patronizing you? With her smooth voice, it’s so hard to tell. It’s kind of hard to care at the moment, though. Rose is draped across you like a very nice girl-smelling blanket, and your fingertips feel fuzzy from the wine. “You know, I, uh.” You chuckle awkwardly. “You’re really pretty. You know that?”

Rose blinks up at you, pausing her hand from where her fingertip was dawdling on your chest. “I’ve been told.”

“I hope you believe it.” You feel so bashful around her, smiling like a schoolboy and blushing up a storm. “It’s so weird. When we were kids, I had the biggest crush on you. Remember when we were supposed to get married?”

“Karkat’s chart,” she murmurs, dropping her eyes again. She’s awfully close to you. “And we were supposed to repopulate the Earth.”

“I know. Isn’t it funny?” Not like you seriously thought about it or anything. Not like you spent three years on a boat thinking about it and whacking off to the thought of her boobs in your face like they are right now. (Sixteen-year-old you is so jealous of current you.)

“I wouldn’t have minded, you know.” Rose’s dress is slipping a little off her shoulder, showing more of her cleavage, and her foot is doing this thing where the instep is tracing up your calf and wowzers. Wowie wow.

“You, uh.” Your voice is cracking god damn it why now when you’re trying to be smooth. “Wouldn’t have?”

“John, we were teenagers trying to fight off the world’s end. I think we all just wanted to get laid before we died.” Yes, that’s more like the Rose you know. She couldn’t possibly be seducing you.

“Well. That’s.” What do you say now? “I still wouldn’t mind.”

“Jonathan!” She’s only mock surprised, though. You can tell in the exaggerated set of her eyebrows, the only-mildly-shocked O of her lips. “I’m not sure I’ve had enough wine for this.”

“Okay, ow, that hurts.” Still, you’re stifling down a laugh. “I mean, I know I’m kind of a dweeb, but I’m not actually as much of a sleazebag as this conversation is making me sound like.”

“Of course you’re not.”

“You’re just making fun of me.”

“No, John. For once, I’m being serious.” Rose presses a kiss to your jaw and you’re soaring. “You’ve grown up.”

“So have you,” you comment, eyes fixed firmly on her breasts.

Rose’s mouth moves up, to your cheek, and you can feel your skin heat up under her lips. Her body is pressed up against yours and she feels so soft and oh. Wow. “What about Dave?”

The comment is like a record scratch, breaking any mood that might have built up in the room. “What about him?” you say defensively.

Rose draws back, looking only mildly concerned. By this point, she’s straddling your lap, thighs pressed against yours, and her breath is fogging sweet against your face. “I’m your roommate’s sister.”

“I don’t care. Who cares? I don’t.” Okay, so maybe you want to get laid. You’d say almost anything at this point.

“And…” Rose’s hands come up to pet at the shoulder seams of your shirt; your hands circle her waist. So soft. “You don’t think he’ll be angry about this?”

“Let him.” You’re mad at him right now anyway. Yes, you’re harder than the New York bar exam right now, but this is also a great way to show Dave exactly how much you don’t care. Sticking your dick in his sister might finally convince him that you’re straight—and that you don’t care how much his precious feefees get hurt because of this.

Rose is so close to you that you can feel her breath against your lips when she whispers back to you. “I like the way you think.” And she closes the gap, pressing her mouth to yours so gently, and her kiss blooms over you like a rose.

You can hardly think. You’ve been waiting ten years for this, and it’s everything you could have hoped for. “Wow,” you whisper when she pulls back.

She doesn’t seem to want to disengage further than a few inches; she rubs her hands up and down your upper arms, and her touch is electrifying. “Here?”

“My bed. Now.”

Rose climbs off of you, takes your hand in hers, and she tugs you back there like you’re her dog and she has you on a leash. Kind of accurate, seeing as you’ve been in an awkward sort of puppy love with her since you were a kid. Her dress falls further off her shoulder and she makes no effort to correct it. When you think about where that dress is going to be in ten minutes, your hard-on just gets more obvious.

Once you’re in your room, she wheels you around, pushes you back towards the bed, and slams the door shut behind you. You have no idea what time it is, but Dave should be home from work soon—and like you told Rose, the walls are rather thin. Though he won’t be able to see you, he’ll definitely be able to hear. That thought makes you grin, even while you’re smiling at Rose as she climbs onto your bed and gets you with your back to your headboard.

She straddles your lap again, kissing you hard, then harder, taking your breath away and leaving you feeling awash in light. “You’re amazing,” you murmur to her, hands wandering up to her tits wow they’re a perfect handful you are the luckiest guy in the world.

Rose’s fingers have been busy undoing your shirt, and her slim, cool fingers run across your skin. You’re embarrassed that you have hair on your chest, but she doesn’t seem to mind. “When did this happen?” she wonders out loud, pressing her palms into your abs.

You shrug, sheepish. “I did use a giant hammer for a couple of years—speak for yourself, wow, I—“ You’re not about to take your hands away from her chest.

“Get my dress off.”

Guess you have to. “Yes, ma’am.” As long as she’s pushing you around like this, you’ll gladly obey. Your hands push up the bottom hem, smoothing along her smooth skin, solid thighs, soft stomach, nipped waist, and you make sure to actually take her clothes off before your hands go right back to where they were. Your mouth is soon to follow, but for now, you want to drink in the sights. “Miss Lalonde, I do believe you’re wearing some very expensive lingerie. What, precisely, was your plan this evening?”

“To have dinner and a few glasses of wine with an old childhood friend,” she says, and her voice definitely has a seductive edge to it. She reaches around to undo her bra and you feel like you might weep when her tits are revealed to you.

You rest your forehead in the crook of her shoulder and her neck. She smells so good—her skin clean, the scent of flowers clinging—but she’s not—“Are you going to be terribly put out if I want to take this a little further?”

“Oh, by all means, Mister Egbert. I’m yours for the evening.”

“Good, because I’m gonna take all night with you.” Okay, that was cheesy, but also totally true. You mouth a path down her collarbones to the slope of her breast. How long has it been since you slept with a girl? Jesus. You forgot how great boobs were. (You are so heterosexual. Look at this.) Boobs. In your mouth. A nipple in your mouth, getting swirled under your tongue, and Rose making delicious girly cooing noises and guiding your hand towards—

Her panties are damp already when your palm hits the space between her legs. “I’m not—ah—sure I want to wait that long,” she sighs.

You press the pad of your thumb against the front seam of her lacy bits, and she bites her lip. Yeah, right on the clit. You haven’t lost your touch. You spent years getting good at this, and you might as well show off for someone you’re sure has very high standards. “You won’t have to. Not for this one.”

“John,” she says softly. The way she says your name… it’s nice. It makes you a little uneasy, though. It’s not the same kind of sigh as you’re used to. (Why are you thinking about that when you have a gorgeous, mostly-naked woman in your bed?) She’s shucking your clothes and kissing your neck, accidentally using her teeth.

Not as rough as you’re used to, either. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing, but you almost wish this would make a mark, just so you could show Dave he’s not the only one who gets under your skin. (God damn it not now. Not fucking now.) Once she gets to your boxers, she barely skims her hand over your cotton-clad boner and you’re already trying to hold yourself back from arching up into her hand.

Time to one-up things. It’s hard to get her underwear off when she’s still straddling you, but you can slip your hand underneath, lace scratching against the back of your hand as your fingers search—“Oh,” she says, high and surprised, like she didn’t expect it, but you take it slow, breaching her gradually with just one finger. You know they’re kind of broad, but you expected her to take it a little better. She’s going to get the full monty soon enough, and you want her to be ready.

Both of you kick out, struggling out of your remaining clothes, and then you’re naked, fingering her, and she’s drooling around your finger and you’re not used to things being this wet. Oh, okay, her fingers close around your cock and pump and it’s too gentle, like she’s not used to touching a dick. Maybe she’s not. Maybe she’s a lesbian. (Maybe she’s doing the same thing you are, getting back at her brother by sleeping with his roommate and it’s not really about you at all, is it. Not thinking about Dave! Not right now oh God why.)

“Condom?” she pants into your mouth. This is really happening, isn’t it, you’re going to have sex with Rose Lalonde, wowie wow wow.

“Nightstand.” She pulls back from you, reaches over, and her hips shift just enough so your dick is trapped up against the inside of her thigh and even this much feels delicious. It’s dark in here, but her skin seems luminous in the streetlights filtering through your window. Rose opens the drawer and it barely scrapes—oh, oh shit, your stomach drops out, she can see your condoms but she can also see the lube and there’s probably other shit in there that you don’t know about but Dave put in there—why can’t you stop thinking about him? During this?

She teases you when she gets the condom on. God it’s been a while since you used one, you don’t need one with—jesus, Egbert, snap out of it, this is Rose and she has really nice breasts and she’s touching your dick and licking her lips like she could eat you alive and fuck do you want her to. “Another,” she tells you.

Oh, right, fingering her. You slide in a second and she makes this lovely gasping noise and you wish you could breathe into her to give her enough air. She’s slick and hot and you’re about to get inside her, aren’t you, she’s moving up your body and teasing the wrapped head of your dick by sliding it against her folds and she grabs your hand by the wrist and pins it to the bed and ruts her dripping slit against you and shit you just want to drive up and take her already when she holds herself over you and slips down effortlessly and oh.

Sex with girls. Yeah. Rose starts riding you, slow, languid, the movement running along her entire body and showing off her tits wow that feels really nice. She’s so beautiful like this and that feels so good and her skin is so soft under your hands and she clenches around you and it’s gentle and nice and—

It’s really nothing but nice, is it. She’s sexy, and this is sex so you’ll take it, and this is the woman you’ve dreamed about since you could get boners, and… it’s not doing as much for you as you thought it would. Still, Rose is making these amazing panting noises as she rides the fuck out of you and when you drive up into her she makes this delighted little scream and you want her to keep making it again so you change your angle and you know you’re hitting right up against her hot spot and you keep at it and she just makes this tremulous moan and fuck she’s gorgeous.

You swear you can hear the front door open, then shut. Dave’s home. Excellent. Rose is lost in the throes of bliss, head thrown back and eyes closed and her entire body trembling, and you bring your hand down so you can work at her clit while you’re grasping one of her breasts and fucking her as hard as you can. She’s so loud, you love that, much louder than Dave—god damn it, not again—and she’s not quite so tight and this doesn’t ignite you as much as you thought it would you hate yourself so much right now but you’re not about to stop.

Rose ripples around you when she orgasms, going quiet and her breath catching in her throat and it’s good enough to get you to flood the condom but while you’re gripping at her hips and hiding your face between her breasts all you can think about is what you don’t want to think about. “John,” she whispers again, and it’s so different, different and maybe better but probably not because you feel disgusting even as she pulls off and you roll off the condom and pretend like that didn’t just happen.

“Wow,” you say to fill the awkward silence.

Rose just looks at you, her eyes wide, pupils blown in the darkness of the room. “Stay here,” she tells you, “I’ll be right back.” She takes your flannel robe from behind your door, wraps herself in it with an excellent amount of cleavage still showing, and walks on silent feet out of your room. “Oh, David! Dearest brother,” she says brightly once she opens the door, and once you shut it, you can’t hear any more.

Well, not really. You hear a lot of mumbling. Some of it is angry. Rose seems awfully nonchalant about the whole thing. Within sixty seconds, she’s back in your room holding a leather notebook with gilt-edged paper and a pen you’re sure costs more than your hourly wage. “Mad, huh.”

“I thought you didn’t care.”

“I didn’t. I don’t. I don’t care. Why should I care? I don’t care.” Overcorrecting. Also kind of doped out on sex hormones. “What’s that for?”

“I often get my best inspiration after coitus.”

“Please tell me you’re not writing your gay fanfiction now.”

“No! No, of course not. This is a different project.” She’s writing fast.  You can’t read her handwriting upside-down, and you doubt you’d be able to read it the right way up either.

“Uh.” You’re acutely aware of being naked; you drag your duvet over your crotch. “Seriously, what are you doing?”

“It’s somewhat of a diary entry. Personal introspection. I want to capture these thoughts before they fall out of my head.”

“You can still think?” You laugh a little—awkward reflex. “Must not have fucked you hard enough.”

Rose looks up from her scribbling. “I did say you had me all evening.”

You share a conspiratorial grin.

\--

Do you make a cake or something? A “sorry I slept with your sister” pastry? A “I still don’t want to talk to you but I miss you” dozen donuts?

Things aren’t even really awkward, just—okay. Okay, yeah, they’re awkward, but only because you’re making it awkward. This is the first time since you and Dave moved into this apartment that you’ve had sex with your houseguest first, and you’re not used to having the upper hand on him. It feels weird.

You still have a week of this bullshit. You’re going to crack.

\--

Saturday, when you wake up, you can hear panting (feminine) and grunting (masculine) from Dave’s room—the wall behind your headboard is really thin, you should probably talk to your landlord about that. You… really can’t tell who’s in there. Is that Dave with a girl? Couldn’t be, he’s so fucking gay that he’s probably allergic to pussy. Did Rose bring a guy back to the apartment? Wouldn’t be out of the question, but still unlikely.

You’re not sticking around to listen to sex noises. Once again, you take solace with early Saturday morning BBC. (Some guys watch cartoons and smoke weed. You make coffee and oatmeal and listen to British accents. Since when are you so responsible?) After a while, during one of the commercials, you hit mute. Nothing there. Someone’s in the shower, though.

If there are more sex noises, you’re leaving. Dave makes an appearance, though, coming out of his room with his hair standing on end in more than a few places. His shades have fingerprints all over them and his lips look bruised. You didn’t do that to him. Something possessory rises in you and you tamp it down immediately. Dave is your friend—best friend—best fucking friend—roommate—not your dog, you can’t keep him all to yourself and it aches somewhere in your chest that he’s not yours. At least there aren’t any marks on him.

“Sup, Egbert,” he says casually while he’s scoping out the fridge, like he wasn’t just well-fucked and you couldn’t just hear him screaming his climax.

“I’m not talking to you.” He’s interrupting your solitude.

Dave just groans. “The classic routine.”

“Did someone just say something? I could swear I felt a cold breeze.”

“What’s going on, boys?” Ah. Rose is here. Grand.

Dave looks at her, then you, then back to her again. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” With a last glare at you that you know he wishes could vaporize your brain, he stomps out of the room, taking his energy drink with him.

Rose watches him leave, then locks onto you. “I didn’t do anything,” you tell her, only a little defensively. “I just said I wasn’t talking to him.”

“John, he’s your roommate. You have to talk to him eventually,” Rose cajoles you as she puts the kettle on for her tea.

“Rose, you don’t get it.”

“What don’t I get?”

The kettle starts screaming, and you have to turn off the TV and raise your voice for Rose to hear you. “He’s not just my roommate. He’s my best friend. He’s Dave Motherfucking Strider.”

“So what is it that you’re afraid of?” Rose asks you as she dunks her teabag.

You open your mouth. Close it. Open it with an idea of what you might say, then bite your lip. It’s something you can’t put into words. You turn the television back on and pretend you didn’t hear her.


	3. Chapter 3

Sunday. Grocery run. As usual. And as usual when you have guests over, you’re greeted to something you might not exactly want to hear once you get back. This time, though, Rose wants your attention right away. “Jonathan!” she’s calling from the back of the apartment. Dave’s room, then. Door open. “I have a question for you!”

“Gimme a minute,” you yell back, “let me put the milk away.” What could she possibly want? Probably nothing you want anything to do with. It gives you time to steel yourself for imminent psychological-ization, or whatever. “Rose, what the hell is so important that you couldn’t just text—“

Oh.

That.

Uh.

No?

Not again, that is. This is the second time you’ve caught Dave in a compromising position with one of his siblings, the second time it’s happened on a Sunday, and you are not—you’re not fucking doing this again, you’re walking away and shutting the door and pouring bleach into your eyes but that’s not going to burn the image out of your brain, is it, holy fuck. God, Rose looked gorgeous, in this really nice black lacy getup that framed her tits so well, and those thigh-high stockings were amazing too, but that wasn’t—of course not, that couldn’t be it, she was wielding a riding crop and she was—just say it to yourself, Egbert--

\--she was straddling Dave’s face, Dave was tongue-deep in her and clutching onto her thighs and nearly scratching holes through her hosiery, you could see his boner in his basketball shorts and Rose had her riding crop outlining it and he had red welts up and down his bare chest and you’re never going to get over this, are you.

You close the door behind you and lean against it, your feet going out from under you. “John,” Rose says plaintively, then “ooh, Dave!” That’s. That’s. No.

“Come on, Egbert,” Dave chimes in, “let’s face it, this is nowhere near the weirdest thing you’ve walked in on me doing.” You hear a slapping sound. Dave hisses. “Person,” he corrects himself.

“Please,” Rose says. You can hear shifting. Maybe Dave’s not suffocating so hard under her. God, why. Why you? (Why does your dick hurt. Why are you hard.) “I did have a question for you.”

“Okay.” Not okay. “Okay.” Still not okay. “Just. Are you decent? For the love of fuck…”

“Just get your ass in here,” Dave says.

No. You won’t. You won’t and you’re turning the door handle and you’re face-to-face with two of your best friends and they only look minimally sex-mussed and you’re going to die. “John, have a seat. Please. We didn’t mean to startle you.”

You look at Rose like she’s sprouted a second head. “So you decided that calling me in while you were doing—that—was a good idea.”

“Well… my question was whether you wanted to join us.”

You keep staring at her. Then at Dave. Then back at Rose again. “No.” You have to put your foot down sometime. This is fucking ridiculous. “No, I—no. Dave, tell her—“

“What he means is he’d love to, but his brain is getting in the way,” Dave clarifies.

You’re going to sink through the floor. Your atoms are going to rearrange and let you re-emerge on Mars. Right? “Dave,” you cajole him again.

“Oh, get the fuck over it, you giant queer,” he sneers at you, sitting up on the bed and dragging you down by your shirt front.

You fall over yourself, land on the bed on your knees, hovering over him and he puts a hand behind your head and starts kissing you. He tastes like Rose. “Dave,” you mumble into his mouth. “Dave, Dave, stop, hold on,” and you push him away, roll him over so you’re both on your sides. Yeah, he hasn’t lost his boner and you can fucking smell how turned in Rose is right now and you’re half-hard already this is so fucked up wow. “Dave, I thought—“ Your voice cracks. Let’s try this again. “I thought you were gay.”

“Dude.” Dave looks up to Rose, who just shakes her head. “I keep telling you. There’s more to life than Gay and Not Gay. Listen, Rose isn’t normally into dudes, but she fucked you.”

“Oh, great, that makes me feel so much better,” you mumble sarcastically. “So it was a pity fuck?”

“No, no, of course not!” Rose coos at you, ruffling your hair. That doesn’t make you feel any better. Still, you rest your head against her thigh, and she keeps massaging at your scalp. Okay, maybe that does feel pretty good. Soothing, at least. “Think of it like a hypothesis.”

“I’m a science experiment.” You roll your eyes. “I’m a fucking science experiment.”

“Egbert, calm your tits, jesus fuck.” Given that time is his element, Dave has a remarkable propensity to lose his temper at the drop of a hat. “We’re all friends here.”

“You’re siblings! That’s—“

“Understandable,” Rose cuts over you.

“In what universe?”

“The Medium.” Not the answer you were expecting. “Dave and I faced death together. He wanted to go out with a bang.”

“Oh my God.” This is so absurd. “Oh my God—I don’t know what I was expecting—Jesus. This is.”

Dave looks up at Rose. “Can we gag him?”

“Does he have a safe signal?”

“You’re not serious,” you say, looking between the two of them.

“John,” Rose interrupts your inevitable train of babbling. “This is for your own good.”

Rose’s hand is still in your hair; her fingers occasionally dawdle down to touch your face. Dave is rubbing along your waist, his mouth occasionally darting down to press heated kisses to your jaw, your neck. It’s like they’re trying to worship you or something. And while it feels good to have this much attention on you, it’s also a little disarming. Both of them can be so manipulative at times, but when they’re pulling you apart like this, you don’t mind so much. “Please,” Dave says quietly into your ear.

You don’t know what to say. You can’t keep doing this to yourself, can’t keep walking this tightrope, and yet. And yet. “Okay,” you whisper shakily. “Okay.”

“Rose’s rules,” he tells you. “We’ll take care of you.”

“Please.” God, your dick hurts.

“Good,” Rose purrs at you. “Good boy.” It hurts worse. Dave runs his teeth along your throat and you forget how to breathe. “Open.”

Open? Open what? Then you get it—Rose’s fingers slip into your mouth, and you almost accidentally bite down when Dave moves to start making a hickey right under your ear. “He likes it when you call him daddy,” he murmurs against your skin.

Oh. Oh fuck no not that oh God they’re trying to kill you. “Daddy,” Rose whispers into your ear, and you make an undignified hrngh noise and your hips rocket up from the bed. Dave pins you down, back to the mattress, and Rose cradles your head between her breasts. God, if they do kill you, you’re going to die happy. “Don’t bite down too hard.”

Dave’s hands slip under your shirt and you gasp. With your mouth open, it gives Rose an opportunity to get a bit between your teeth. It tastes weird against your tongue—it’s not metal, more like rubber, and it tastes a little like a tacky condom but you’ll never tell either of them that because that would involve telling them how you know what a condom tastes like. There’s leather straps right under your cheekbones, and Rose’s fingers feel cool and soothing against your scalp when she draws them back to buckle them together at the base of your skull. It’s not like it’s hard to breathe, but there doesn’t seem to be much air in the room. “Can I get his shirt off?” Dave asks his sister.

“Of course.” Wait. Did Dave just ask her for permission? Jesus. He wasn’t kidding, Rose is really running the show. “I need his torso bare if we’re going to use the handcuffs.”

“Hnnhkhhs?” How long have they been planning this? You’re about ninety-five percent sure Dave doesn’t own any. The sound turns into a moan, though, when Dave starts stripping you, getting you as shirtless as he is. Once your chest is bare, he immediately pinches a nipple, and it’s cruel and harsh and exactly what you needed because it gets you to writhe under him.

“Shh,” Rose soothes you. This is so pathetic—you need her emotional support to have sex with her brother. You can feel your face coloring. “We’re going to take care of you.” Take care of you, your dick. Literally, they’re not doing anything to help and it’s about to rocket off your crotch by now. “Give me your hands, Daddy—oh, watch out, he bucks,” she notes.

“Yeah, I know. Makes everything better.” This is a giant conspiracy and all you wanted to do was get some goddamn milk and give Dave and his sister some goddamn privacy. Rose’s hands smooth down your arms even as Dave moves down your body; she takes your wrists in her hands, massaging your pulse point even as Dave mouths at your hipbone and you try not to make a noise behind your gag. “Can I blow him yet?”

“Be patient, dear brother.” Dave makes a little frustrated sound that catches in his throat. “I’d like an inventory of what, exactly, is in that drawer,” she says, nodding to his nightstand.

Oh, no. Oh, no, you are so screwed. Rose closes unyielding metal around one wrist, holds your hands to the headboard, fastens the other one. “Don’t yank,” Dave tells you right when you start to yank. It’s just like—just like the last time, when he used your own shirt to truss you up. Why is this so hot? “It’s not just this drawer,” Dave tells Rose, “but in here, I got about three dozen condoms, four kinds of lube, a blindfold, some beads, a couple plugs, a couple vibes…” Jesus, is it an abyss of sex toys?

“And what isn’t in that drawer?” Rose asks pointedly. Her hands move from petting at your scalp to rub down your chest before she pinches your nipples.

You jerk in your restraints. Dave has to sit on your thighs to keep you from moving. “The spreader bar—ask John about it, it’s a fucking incredible story.” Your flush moves all the way down your chest to where Rose’s fingers are twisting your nipples. “Some rope, but I don’t use it that much. Cock rings.”

“Ooh,” Rose coos, and you know you’re in so much fucking trouble. “Tell me you have some of those coins.” Coins? What coins? Dave nods. “Mm. Excellent. I want you to tape one to his shaft.” This time, the little sound you make isn’t quite stifled by the bit in your mouth.

“Hey, Mikey, I think he likes it,” Dave comments. You want to slap the wry smile off his face. Of course, this means he has to get off of you, and you feel bereft when he starts to crawl under the bed instead. “Anything else I should get while I’m down here?”

“Not from under the bed, but if you could be a dear and bring some of the vibrators—oh, and a copious amount of lube.” You start to eulogize yourself in your head. “Dave, how many times can you make him climax in a row?”

Holy fucking shit. “Twice.”

“Mm, I think he can do better than that. Can’t you, Daddy?” Rose kisses your temple and you obligingly make a yes-sounding noise for her. “We’ll start with the coin and work our way up from there. John, if anything gets to be uncomfortable, just shake your head. Can you shake your head for me?” You try to oblige and just remind yourself that you’re wearing her tits like earmuffs. Every guy’s fantasy is happening to you right the fuck now and you feel like you’re about to explode. “Good,” Rose purrs. “Good.”

“Please say I get to fuck him eventually,” Dave says. He sounds desperate. More desperate than he’s been in a long time.

“Eventually. Patience.” Dave starts working on your pants; you help him get you out of your clothes, hardly even embarrassed at how hard your dick is already. Not like it’s completely shining with precum already. Jesus you want both of them so bad. “Let’s start.”

Dave and Rose have similar hands, pale and slim and long-fingered, though Dave’s hands are of course bigger and his knuckles are articulated a little finer. There’s something cold, about the size of a thumbprint, that gets pressed to your cock just under the head, and then there’s a thing like a rubber band that holds it there and you pulse in the siblings’ combined grip. That’s. The coin, whatever that is. Out of the side of your eyes, you can see Dave hand Rose something, and then—oh. Oh God.

It’s a vibrator. And it’s right up against your frenum and you spurt out another dribble of precum and you’re going to die. “You’re not going to die,” Rose whispers into your ear. “Does it feel good?” You nod—God, her tits again. “You don’t have to feel guilty about this,” she murmurs, pressing kisses to the side of your face and running her fingers through your hair. “We just want to make you feel good.”

You nod. Or at least, you try to. But Dave’s hands are smoothing along your thighs, parting them, and Rose is shushing you and trying to calm you down—which is good, because you feel like you’re about to have a panic attack. He rolls your balls in his hand and you try and fail not to thrust right into his touch. “You’re gonna love this.” Who is he talking to? You or Rose? He takes his hands away and you make a little huffing noise of deprivation before—

His fingertips are wet and he’s pressing right against your—you, and you twitch violently and Rose just soothes everything down and Dave penetrates you with a finger and you cry out and turn your head so you can hide your eyes in Rose’s décolletage. “He’s so sensitive,” Rose marvels. They’re talking about you like an object. Or like you’re not even here.

Why does that turn you on so much? Like you’re just a little plaything for them to manipulate, and if it pleases them to please you then you’re not about to stop them. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” Dave drawls. Is he trying to impress her with his Texan background? But Dave keeps pressing in with that finger, and you can feel every knuckle as it moves past you, and then he’s pressing forward and his hand comes up to your stomach to keep your lower back connected to the mattress and you actually feel better that you have a bit between your teeth because now you’re not trying to bite Rose’s breast with trying to tamp back how good this feels. “Come on, you little bitch, I wanna hear,” Dave growls at you.

You’re only too glad to oblige, giving him all the noises you can while Rose cradles your face and comforts you through it. “Shh,” she whispers over and over, “shh, show us how good it feels,” and Dave’s just pressing his fingertip right into your joy buzzer and you’re actually buzzing with how good it feels and oh no. Not yet, not yet, you don’t want this to be over and Dave’s barely started but you can’t hold it back and you writhe under Dave, against Rose’s body, as your hips jerk and you come from nearly nothing at all.

“Wow,” you can hear Dave say, even over the rush of blood through your ears. “That was a really good idea, sis.”

“You’re not done yet, are you,” she says.

Dave doesn’t deign to answer that, just gives her a look. Your glasses are fogging up a little. He gives you a few seconds, yeah, and Rose uses her little remote to dial down the sensations on your dick, but they’re not about to go easy on you just yet. “Come on, Daddy, that’s it, take another,” and that intrusion is twice as noticeable, twice as thick, and he’s digging at your button with the pressure of two fingertips instead of one. Even though it should be biologically impossible to still be hard when you just came as much as you did, your dick is trying to make up for it, especially when you can hear Dave calling you that, in that thick, aroused voice.

Rose just keeps peppering your face with kind kisses, like she has to baby you through this, and you hate yourself that she’s right about that but you can’t handle this, it’s too raw, too intense, you need someone to hold onto, you need emotional support, because this is wrecking you more than physically and you’re not sure you’re going to be okay. “Dave, I think that’s enough,” she says quietly, and while Dave makes a little frustrated noise he still starts to pull his fingers out and you wail because you need it you need him oh God why—

Another hum joins the buzz of the coin on your cock, and even though you should be able to anticipate it the sensation of vibrations against your—against you makes you shiver violently. “Take it,” Dave mutters, and you feel empty and open and all you want is someone to hold you and fill you up and take the fractures in your fortitude and tell you it’s okay to be broken and Dave slips the vibe in you and you throw your head back and try to twitch and Rose and Dave just hold you down and whisper sweet words to you, like they have to coach you through this, and they do, they really do, because you’re scared and this is overwhelming.

At first Dave doesn’t even do anything with it, just holds it in you like he knows you have to adjust to feeling so pampered, and Rose continues to doodle her cool fingertips along your heated skin. It’s hard for you to breathe—normally you’d be panting through your mouth but the bit takes up too much space and so your nostrils are flaring as you try to stay conscious. You’re practically jumping out of your skin.

Dave nudges the vibe in you, getting the bulb of it up against your sweet spot, and you scream. Unapologetically. “I live for that noise,” he tells Rose rapturously. “Isn’t that fucking sweet?” And he just holds it there, the bastard, and he and Rose coordinate turning up both vibrators until you’re absolutely writhing and Rose and Dave have to use their full weight to keep you pinned to the bed, keep you from hurting yourself.

“How long until he can orgasm again?”

“Give it a little. Two minutes, max. I can blow him and it’ll get him there faster,” Dave offers.

“No,” Rose says right away, and Dave makes a sound like a kicked puppy. It’s almost like Rose is directing you around just like you would—if you could still remember English, if you weren’t biting down on rubber between your teeth. He follows directions so well. If you could reach out, you’d pet his face, but Rose does it for you. As it is, you’re hyperventilating, and Rose has to step in and mediate. “Breathe, John. Breathe,” she reminds you.

You can’t. They’ve taken your breath away. Yes, even in that cheesy ‘80s romance song kind of way. Dave starts thrusting the vibe in you, just a little, just enough, and you’re not sure if it’s been two minutes already but you’re dangerously close as it is. Your dick is so hard it hurts and you still feel like you need more, this isn’t enough—you want—you don’t want to admit what it is that you want. “How many times are we doing this?”

“As much as he can take.” You groan, half-miserable and half-pleased. You’re going to be obliterated. “Come on, he’s close, let him.”

Rose makes a little tsking sound. “I suppose,” she says, feigning boredom, but you can still hear the chuckle hidden under there. When she leans down to whisper in your ear, your head is squished delightfully between her breasts. “Come for us, John, that’s it, Daddy.”

That’s it, that’s all, she didn’t even need to bring her fingertip to the head of your dick to rub it in the slickness there but it means you dirty her beautiful hand when you blow this time. It’s not as much as the first one, but still just as strong, and it leaves you trembling afterwards with the vibration inside you, on you, and the exhaustion spreading to your bones. “Hang in there, I’m not near done with you,” Dave mutters to you, and you want to punch the grin off his face but you don’t want your hands out of the handcuffs because god damn does it feel good to just give up control like this.

You cry out when Dave pulls the p-spot vibe out of you. There are wet tracks on your face—sex-sweat, mostly, but probably tears, too, and Rose wipes the wetness with the pad of her thumb and keeps shushing you and kissing you and touching you and she’s an angel, she really is, orchestrating all of this and pandering to you and she’s not even taking her own pleasure from this. Or is she? When you stop breathing quite so hard, you can hear a little schlicking sound that isn’t coming from you or Dave—is she—oh God.

She’s touching herself. To you and Dave—oh. Oh wow. That’s. That’s really hot, and you can’t even tell her how sexy it is, just groan and drool a little into her lingerie and she still keeps soothing you through this. “Now?” Dave asks her, sounding like he’s about to snap.

“Now.” Oh, thank God, you make a little sound in the back of your throat that escalates to a dog-like whine when Rose turns up the intensity of the coin. “No condom?”

“Don’t use ‘em,” Dave says. That schlicking is lube on his cock; you hate yourself for recognizing that sound. Rose looks a little surprised at what Dave said, but you can’t understand why. You and Dave did the whole safe thing at the beginning, when you were still in college—oh, fuck, this has been going on since college, you’ve been trapped in this warped little alternate reality for almost six years now—but by the time you moved in here you were past all that and he’s—he’s.

He’s lining up with you and his hips are trembling and Rose dips her head down to peck him on the lips for luck and Dave absolutely shudders at that and he crushes his body to you and guides himself in and you give for him so easily and you finally feel fulfilled for the first time in weeks.

“Stop.” Dave’s not even halfway in and he still freezes immediately at Rose’s command. Both of you are making obscene needy sounds, but you can nearly hear Rose smiling. “You would do anything for him, wouldn’t you?”

Dave doesn’t say anything, just looks up at her with wide eyes and nods. You can feel his dick pulse in you, he’s so hard. And even while you’re hard, something inside you goes impossibly soft, melting and liquidating something between your ears and warmth spreading in your chest and this isn’t love but it’s something endearingly close because you trust Dave with your life and now you know that trust isn’t misplaced. “I’m dying,” he says, low in his throat, and it rumbles in his chest and you can feel it next to his heartbeat against your breastbone where he’s pressing himself into you. Like he could phase through your skin. His hands shake like he wishes he could tear you apart and crawl inside your ribcage and curl up next to your heart.

“Move,” Rose says gently. Dave drives into you with an incredible amount of desperation and Rose has to put her hand on his shoulder to get him to stop. “Not so fast. You’ll break him.”

“He’s strong, he can take it,” Dave grunts out. Still, he does exactly what she says, drawing out as slowly as you’ve ever felt him and sliding back in with an unprecedented deliberateness. “Please, sis, I gotta—“

“Shh, you’re doing so good, make Daddy proud, you’re both so good,” and you feel like there’s light radiating under your skin, like time is dilating out into forever, and you can’t breathe, you can’t breathe, not when Rose is suffocating you with the weight of her affection and Dave is filling you with everything you need to live. “Two seconds each, David, I want this to last a long time.”

He starts to thrust, each movement smooth and calculated. He’s shivering above you, just like you’re shaking under him, and Rose is the anchor that’s keeping everything smooth sailing. Or something. You can’t even think in English any more, not when your skin is prickling and your dick is drooling on your stomach and Dave is looking at you like he wants to snap each rung of your spine one by one, wring you dry until there’s nothing left of you but need for him. “Fuck, John, you’re so,” he mutters against your shoulder, his breath heating your skin, and his teeth follow soon after.

“Faster—come here,” and even Rose seems to be fed up, because she reaches out to grab Dave by the throat and pull him to her. It jostles him in you and his powerful thrust hits you right where it should and you scream, even as you watch Rose nearly maul his mouth with the intensity of her kiss. “Move with me,” and she pushes Dave back with her makeshift collar. He slips out from you and you suck in a breath. She yanks him back and he drives in again and you shudder.

This feels like it’s been going on forever. Dave nips at your throat, your collarbones, every time he hits home, and your cock pulses whenever the head of his dick hits against your p-spot. Even Rose is panting with exertion; you can feel the tension in her arm where she’s reaching down to touch herself. “Daddy,” you realize Dave’s panting in the space between breaths, and it just makes you even harder, desperate to come and moaning nonstop behind your gag.

“Mark him,” you realize Rose is saying, though her voice sounds so different when it’s high and breathy and aroused like that. “Mark him and I’ll allow you to put your mouth on him.”

Dave picks up the pace, thrusting hard into you, growling like he wants to end you, and the coin ratchets up in intensity again, and though you already feel like you’re about to explode Rose reaches down her other hand and wraps her fingers around your pre-slickened cock and lets you buck up into her grip as Dave fucks you stupid and you’re seeing white, you can’t feel your tongue or your fingertips or your toes and Rose wrings a few pathetic drips of cum from you as Dave continues to pummel you and he cries out and says something about you clenching and how it feels so good and oh God, oh God, you can feel him jizzing in you and he bites down on your shoulder so hard he draws blood and he holds himself still and barely breathes as he rides out his orgasm.

When Rose is convinced the two of you are done, she turns the vibrator off, lets go of your dick. Thank God, the pressure was getting to be a little too much, so good it hurts—and you hear that in your head in Dave’s voice, maybe because he’s trying to say it to you right now. Rose rolls the little rubber band off your dick, takes the coin away, and you cry from the relief in pressure, cry out again when Dave pulls out and you can fucking feel his cum dripping out of you and you shiver because it’s humiliating and yet it only turns you on, God you’re such a sick fuck. “Go ahead,” Rose says.

Dave looks exhausted, but he’s trying to please you anyway, his tongue lolling out of his mouth and he’s—he’s licking along your cock, taking your release into his mouth, making it shine with more than just your pre, and you’re oversensitive and you buck against your gag and your handcuffs and Rose just holds you down savagely and you writhe under Dave’s ministrations. He takes the head of your cock into his mouth and you swear you start crying.

“One more, Daddy, I know you have it in you,” Rose sighs next to your ear, and Dave purses his mouth and sinks down and takes you into his throat and sucks hard and you scream so hard you swear your throat goes bloody with it. He licks against the place where the coin was and that’s it, God, you’re dying, you can feel your dick twitching in his mouth and you’re coming dry and Dave just hums contentedly with his eyes closed and pulls off with what looks like reverence and immediately collapses next to you and Rose.

You’re pretty sure you white out for a little bit. At the very least, you’re useless, and you can’t understand what Rose is trying to say, but at least it feels soothing to you, leaving you a little less frazzled than you could be. She takes your handcuffs off, massages life back into your hands, and her touch is so gentle as to be condescending. When she takes the bit gag away, your mouth feels dry even though there’s drool all over your face. “Rose,” is all you can think to say.

“Shh,” she tells you, putting a finger over your lips to push them closed again. “Don’t speak.” She kisses your forehead gently, then lays you back down on the bed next to Dave; you curl up in him and he gladly puts his arm around you.

You can vaguely hear her leaving and you feel almost desolate without her. Why do you need her emotional support to deal with your own best friend? He looks beautiful when he’s wrecked like this, and you’re so tired that you can’t even find the energy to engage in your usual vigorous self-denial. Wow. Maybe this was what you needed.

When Rose comes back, she’s carrying a tray with three glasses of water and a bar of Hershey’s you and Dave were saving for a rainy day and microwave s’mores. It smells good, and you gladly take some from her fingertips when she pushes it into your mouth. The water feels good going down, too, refreshing and you feel exhausted and half-sick with how good that was and if you died now you might not be completely content but you’d be with people you care about.

And that would be something.

\--

\-- tentacleTherapist  [TT] started pestering ectoBiologist  [EB] at 14:32 --

TT: Good afternoon, John.   
EB: same to you rose!   
EB: what's up?   
TT: I was merely enquiring as to whether you've spoken to Dave yet this week.   
EB: it's only tuesday. give it time.   
TT: I leave on Thursday. I'd prefer to see you reconciled before then.   
EB: reconciled?   
EB: there's nothing to reconcile.   
EB: we're just two douchebags who live together.   
TT: I see.   
EB: shut up.   
TT: I didn't say anything.   
EB: it was a preemptive shut up.   
EB: yes, i know big words just like you. i'm a big kid now.   
TT: I'll see you tonight for dinner.

\-- tentacleTherapist  [TT] ceased pestering ectoBiologist  [EB] at 14:39 --

\--

Rose is leaving tomorrow, and you really couldn’t be happier. Things are actually kind of normal around here again. Sure, there’s enough tension that you’re sure you could cut through it with your fucking hammer, but that’s no different from the usual. Dave is actually smiling again, that cocky look that makes you want to shove your cock in his mouth to wipe it off his smug douchebag face, and pretty soon it will be back to the two of you. Back to the way things always are.

“Hey, Egbert, a little help? I have the upper arm strength of five limp fettuccini noodles and I can’t get the cork out.”

Just like normal. “You know we don’t have to have wine every night. She’s just been putting on an act.”

“Oh really. I couldn’t tell.” Dave’s sarcasm could curdle milk, but it just means he’s back. “Just help me, jackass.”

You reach around him, yank on his arm, and pull the cork out first try. “Is that all, Mister Strider?”

“Well, it would be, except I wanted to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“Well, uh. We’re gonna have the apartment to ourselves pretty soon,” Dave says idly as he pours the wine. “What did you wanna do Friday?”

You shrug, taking the wine from him as he fills the glasses and finishing the set of the table for dinner. “Thai food and old Nintendo 64 games.”

“Just like every Friday?” There’s that genuine smile. You haven’t seen it in a long time. “I missed that.”

Oh. That’s. Edging a little close to where there’s a gigantic crack in the ice and if you take any further steps you’ll break it and fall in and simultaneously drown and freeze to death. “Yeah,” you say tersely. “Same.”

“Oh, come on, we’re still not talking about it?”

You wheel around on him, and bless him, Dave actually jumps back. “No, Dave. We’re not. Talking. About it.”

“Seriously?”

“There’s nothing to talk about!” It’s a little too loud, considering that you’re closing the distance between you and Dave by taking slow, measured steps towards him and watching him back into the corner of the kitchen counter. “Things are just like they always are.”

“Yes, so we’re going to tiptoe around the giant pink-and-white-polka-dotted elephant in the corner of the room. Excellent.” Dave rolls his eyes—you can tell behind his shades.

You lean on the counter, bracing yourself over him. You’re not that much taller than him, but you like it when he feels smaller than you. “Listen,” you say into his ear, like you’re afraid someone could hear you, “Just—let it go. Please. I’m okay with… this. Just this. How things are. I don’t…” You take in a huge breath. Where were you going with this? “I don’t want things to change.”

“They won’t,” Dave says, his mouth very close to your neck. “They never have.”

“Good,” you grit out.

“Fine,” he spits back.

You stay in the vicinity of his body heat for entirely too long, trying to figure out if you have the strength to pull away before something sexual happens. Dave surprises both of you by darting up to peck you on the lips before darting out from under your arms. “You little shit,” you say through a smirk.

“You chose to live with me,” he points out.

“I hate you.”

“You don’t.”

“I don’t.”

\--

“I’m glad the two of you are talking again.”

You’re supposed to be dropping Rose off at the airport, but she seems determined to draw out this final conversation while you’re sitting in the carpool lane. “Yes, Rose, we’re on speaking terms again.”

“I’m delighted you’ve decided to resolve your latent sexual frustration like adults.” Rose shoulders her purse. “Do let me know how that turns out, won’t you?”

“Rose, it’s not like that.”

Rose freezes, her eyebrows stuck in her fringe and her eyes burning a hole in your skull. “And here I thought I had fixed things.”

“Rose.” You reach over to pat at her knee. You don’t mean for it to be condescending, but it would be kinda nice if she got a taste of her own medicine sometimes. “There’s nothing to fix.”

“You’re dysfunctional!”

“You’re wrong.” Rose just stares at you like your eyes have turned to tentacles. “Just because we don’t talk about shit doesn’t mean it doesn’t work for us.”

“For you,” she corrects you.

You don’t bother to fight her on it. “You’re going to miss your flight.”

“I’ve never been late before.”

“And I don’t want you to be late for this one.”

“Oh, Jonathan.” She reaches over to pat your cheek, then she pulls you close to kiss you on the forehead. It feels like a bullet between the eyes. “You’re so responsible.”

You’re still puzzling out what she means by that two hours after you get back home.


End file.
